Hail Mary Socks, Amish Romances, and Stupid Christian Bumper Stickers

Credit: Cason Walden

Do you ever get tired of Christian pop culture:  Contemporary Christian music, or Christian t-shirts and bumper stickers, or “Christian” art or fiction?  Had enough of Amish romances or Thomas Kinkade paintings or Third Day?  Do you despise the teen Bibles and women’s Bibles and camo Bibles?  And speaking of camo, do you want to distance yourself from the Duck Dynasty folks or remove all the Facing the Giants/Fireproof/Courageous/War Room movies from the DVD store?  Are you embarrassed by the low production values or lack of artistic quality or nonexistent literary value?  Do you want to disassociate yourself from these manifestations of Christianity for fear that you will lose your “cool” factor?

If so, I understand.  Sometimes I’m chagrined at what becomes popular in current Christian culture.  And sometimes I’m outright disgusted or horrified.  There’s no doubt that much of what sells on the market lacks true value or integrity.  BUT, that’s no different from popular NON-Christian culture.  It’s not a Christian issue:  it’s a culture issue.

We have to be careful not to be elitist or arrogant about our artistic tastes.  I don’t care anything at all about much of what a Christian store might sell, but it’s meaningful to a significant number of people and I cannot pass judgment on their tastes.  As long as it’s not sinful, if it helps someone spiritually, I should rejoice that it exists.  

It’s true that artists should glorify God with their works, but that doesn’t mean they can’t mass produce something or aim for the middle.  If they only produced avant-garde or intellectual material, they wouldn’t reach the majority.  And the gospel is for everyone.  Like Paul said, “I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some.” I Cor. 9:22  

So I want you to realize that we should actually rejoice and celebrate the “low-brow” nature of some of Christian pop culture.  It’s proof that Christianity is not just for the elite, the intellectual, the serious artist:  it’s for everyone from every station of life.  And that’s one reason we believe in it.